A Coming Soon or Under Construction page serves as a placeholder while your website is being built or tested on the hosting server. This type of page prevents public access until your site is ready.
The default pages that servers typically look for when accessing your website are, in order of priority:
index.htmindex.htmlindex.phpdefault.htm
How to Create an Under Construction Page
1. Create an Under Construction Page
- Log in to your cPanel.
- Navigate to File Manager and select the root folder (for the primary domain, use
public_html). - Click New File and name it appropriately (e.g.,
underconstruction.html). - Click Create New File.
2. Edit the Under Construction Page
- Select the newly created file and click HTML Editor.
- Craft the content of your page, including all relevant contact information and a brief paragraph about your company or products.
- Click Save.
3. Change Your Default Index Page in .htaccess
The .htaccess file is a hidden text file in your hosting account that can modify your website's default behavior.
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In File Manager, click on Web Root (for addon domains, select the correct domain name from the dropdown).
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Ensure that Show Hidden Files is checked.
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Click Go.
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Right-click the
.htaccessfile and select Edit. Paste the following code at the beginning of the file, replacingunderconstruction.htmlwith your filename:# Alternate default index page DirectoryIndex underconstruction.html -
Click Save.
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Test your site online to ensure the changes are effective.
4. Additional .htaccess Information
For added flexibility, you can include multiple filenames in the .htaccess file. The server will check them in order from left to right. Here’s an example:
# Alternate default index page
DirectoryIndex underconstruction.html index.htm index.html index.php default.htm
This setup will allow the server to fallback to other index files if the underconstruction.html page is not found.